Woodrow Hartzog

Professor Hartzog is a Professor of Law and Computer Science at Northeastern University, where he teaches privacy and data protection law, policy, and ethics. He holds a joint appointment with the School of Law and the College of Computer and Information Science. His recent work focuses on the complex problems that arise when personal information is collected by powerful new technologies, stored, and disclosed online.

Professor Hartzog’s work has been published in numerous scholarly publications such as the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, California Law Review, and Michigan Law Review and popular national publications such as The Guardian, Wired, BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, New Scientist, Slate, The Atlantic, and The Nation. His book, Privacy’s Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies, is under contract with Harvard University Press. He has testified twice before Congress on data protection issues.

Professor Hartzog has served as a Visiting Professor at Notre Dame Law School and the University of Maine School of Law. He previously worked as an attorney in private practice and as a trademark attorney for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He also served as a clerk for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He holds a PhD in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an LLM in intellectual property from the George Washington University Law School, and a JD from Samford University.

According to NPR, 300 plus teenagers broke into former NFL player Brian Holloway’s vacation home, causing massive damage and showcasing their exploits on social media. In response, Holloway created a website,helpmesave300.com, that collects the alleged culprits’ social media posts. He claims this repository has enabled teens to be identified, and that the growing list of names is “being turned over to the sheriffs (sic) department to assist them to verify and identify the facts.”

Online stalking, harassment, and invasions of privacy can be incredibly destructive. Yet very little empirical data exisits regarding these incidents. This paucity of data hinders educational, support, research and policy efforts. Without My Consent, a non-profit organization seeking to combat online invasions of privacy, is conducting research to better understand the experiences of online harassment. If you are 18 or older and have experienced harassment on the Internet, please consider taking their survey.

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The user agreement has become a potent symbol of our asymmetric relationship with technology firms. For most of us, it’s our first interaction with a given company. We sign up and are asked to read the dreaded user agreement — a process that we know signifies some complex and inconveniently detrimental implications of using the service, but one that we choose to ignore.

The revelation that Cambridge Analytica was involved in the extraction of data involving over 50 million Facebook users has raised more than a few questions about just what went wrong and who is to blame.

To hear some in industry and government tell it, the answer to our modern privacy dilemma is simple: give users more control. There is seemingly no privacy-relevant arena, from social media to big data to biometrics that cannot be remedied with a heaping dose of personal control. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “What people want isn’t complete privacy. It isn’t that they want secrecy.

On December 14, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission settled a complaint with the company running the adult finder site Ashley Madison over the 2015 data breach that exposed the personal data of more than 36 million users and highlighted the site’s unfair and deceptive practices.

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""Some companies may realize it’s better to just extend GDPR protections to all their customers, period, rather than one one policy for European citizens and one policy for the rest of the world," says Richard Forno, a cyber security researcher and the Assistant Director of UMBC's Center for Cybersecurity. "

"Northeastern professor Woodrow Hartzog, whose new book, Privacy’s Blueprint, published last month, calls the law a “watershed moment,” saying it’s built on the notion that privacy is a fundamental right. He said that while the law applies directly to Europeans, companies that have customers all over the world—like Facebook, Google, Twitter and many of your favorite apps—are updating their terms for everyone, including Americans.

"Deceptive design nudges, tricks and goads you into sharing more than you might intend to online, Professor Hartzog argues in his new book, Privacy's Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies.

And when you think you're in control of your own data, you rarely are.

"If you want to know when social media companies are trying to manipulate you into disclosing information or engaging more, the answer is always," he said."

""Once this sort of behavior becomes normalized, it becomes harder to push back on both as a consumer and as a matter of policy," said Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University."

"At a minimum, “Facebook is going to have to think about ways to structure their technology to give that proper notice,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a Northeastern University professor of law and computer science."

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Probe the difficult questions that we will need to address as human-robot relationships evolve in the coming decades. Explore the nuances of our future and prepare for the complex problems that will rise as our lives become more A.I. dependent.

Adults 18+ Only.

This program is free thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute.

Ranging across consumer protection, data aggregation, digital networks, high-tech devices and surveillance, this panel brings together top privacy and surveillance experts to discuss how the Trump administration has and will continue to shape our privacy in these and other areas.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

ELIZABETH JOH Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law

AHMED GHAPPOUR Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law

ANDREA MATWYSHYN Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law

The Tech/Law Colloquium speaker for September 19, 2017 will be Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University, where he teaches privacy and data protection law, policy, and ethics. His recent work focuses on the complex problems that arise when personal information is collected by powerful new technologies, stored, and disclosed online.

Talk: Privacy’s Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies

Robots are starting to look suspiciously familiar. Increasingly sophisticated robots designed to resemble us are striking up more and more symbiotic relationships with humans, at home as our companions and at our workplaces as colleagues.

Human-robot interactions will continue to evolve as robotic technology transforms the way we see our creations and the way they react to us. But as machines cease acting like machines and become more integrated into our lives, how will we feel about them? And, dare we ask, how will they feel about us?

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Recently 50 million Facebook users had their personal information extracted and used for political and commercial purposes. In the wake of this scandal, we’ve all become much more aware of how our use of social media clashes with our desire for privacy. Are technical fixes and awareness enough, or is it time for Facebook and other online services to be regulated? Our guest Woodrow Hartzog is a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University and discusses the battle and future of our personal information.

Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at Northeastern University Law School, discusses Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s agreement to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the company’s data usage policies. He speaks with Bloomberg’s June Grasso.